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Seminars about the work of a racing car.

Posted: 02 Mar 2018, 13:02
by Rustem 1988
Need information about the balance of the car, the work of tires and suspension. What seminars can be useful? Which trainers can explain well? Can a virtual school of racing on the Internet be useful?

Re: Seminars about the work of a racing car.

Posted: 03 Mar 2018, 00:18
by Greg Locock
Claude Rouelle's courses are good. I don't recommend the SAE courses, judging by the one I did last year. The cheapest and most useful thing would be to buy Race Car Vehicle Dynamics, and the workbook, and go through that.

Re: Seminars about the work of a racing car.

Posted: 03 Mar 2018, 11:58
by Tim.Wright
To find something useful, it depends on what your background knowledge (engineering wise) is and what level you are trying to reach (i.e. professional or enthusiast).

If you are a degree holding engineer and want a professional working knowledge on this stuff my recommendation is to avoid all motorsport related books and seminars because they teach you a load of bad habits based on rules of thumb and lot of handwaving with too little valid engineering substance. I went to multiple motorsport seminars in my uni days and as a result I spent the first 3 years of my career unlearing all the crap I had "learnt" in these seminars.

Books by Miliken (despite it's name Race Car Vehicle Dynamics, it's got little to do with pure motorsport applications) and Guiggiani will help you apply basic mechanics theory to vehicles in a correct way. It's critical though, that you already have this understanding of mechanics.

Re: Seminars about the work of a racing car.

Posted: 03 Mar 2018, 12:38
by johnny comelately
If you are able, hop in a car on a hard pack track, or whatever, and just drive. And adjust and drive and...ad nauseum :)
I think this is really helpful in understanding the application before the theory.
I might have this wrong, but in Adrian Neweys book he alludes to that when he finally got in one of his creations.

Re: Seminars about the work of a racing car.

Posted: 03 Mar 2018, 14:49
by Tommy Cookers
the OP asks first about the balance of the car

all cars sold for road use are by law not balanced - they have steady state understeer (ignore the journalist bs)

first drive on the track such a car and learn the little that you can
then increase the rear roll stiffness to produce balance - and you will be on another level of learning

Re: Seminars about the work of a racing car.

Posted: 03 Mar 2018, 18:18
by Tim.Wright
I've always been of the opinion that you need to learn the theory first before the practical. Driving a car and drawing conclusions about what you feel without knowing the theory of what is going on is guaranteed to lead you to form incorrect concepts in your mind about what's going on in the suspension that will take you years to unlearn once you get around to properly learning everything.

Driving a car (or even a simulator for that matter) after you have a sound knowledge of the fundamentals is extremely eye opening.